Grand Summoner and Bonder, though they both involve Summoning Youkai, one is good at summoning rediculous numbers whilethe other is good at utilizing fewer, strengthening those few a bit and making the summoner better at combat while theyare nearby. Because of these two completely opposing styles, it's hard to balance out Youkai. A suggestion I have for thisproblem is that Grand Summoner gain some support based interactions beyond a one range stat buff. Granted the buff is nice, the lack of range on it is very crippling in the heat of battle causing it to be -very- hard to consider worthwhile as using either the Youkai's momentum moving towards the summoner or Summoner using their momentum to move to the youkai to use it isn't so great. And using Encourage after auto-summon isn't so nifty either due to Youkai's naturally low movespeed. Especially if the Summoner is slower than the target, due to Encourage lasting three or four rounds if I recall its bonuses will only last for approximately two to three usable rounds depending on the celerity of the battle participants.

If not much else, I suggest at least a range increase on Encourage, and perhaps a way to turn this effect into an area of effect based bonus for youkai, and then something to help increase their movement speed. These two things alone will help the class immensely to feel more like you're commanding a team of reliable other-planar beings. As far as how much of a movement buff I'm asking for, 2-3 tiles is enough, considering the median range i've deduced for youkai skills is 4.

Before people ask about Bonder. I do still have a few ideas. For starters, Aliagmato and Ritual Sword are very lackluster in appeal compared to Infernal Summon. I feel that giving Ritual Sword bonus damage when used would help make it at least worth considering over Infernal Summon. If not this, then make it 3 momentum instead of four so at the least it can be used more than simply once. Its single bonded youkai effect is fine as it is.

Aliagmato on the other hand instead should give the youkai a bonus to hit and crit when used, but not the summoner. When using a single bonded youkai, THEN the summoner gains this hit and crit bonus during it. The fact it's 4M means it can't be spammed for hyper damage, as such it needs to be great when used. Another thing is a number of youkai have elemental basic attacks meaning elemental resistances on top of their generally low strength is a factor in how this skill can be used unless someone takes the three beast race youkai, or two and another fire type which even then, fire is generally well resisted.

I can feel comments coming on saying "But you use priest as a support for Grand Summoner you should be fine?? Maybe you're just bad and whining." Sure, Priest has good support like brighten for magic resistance and on hit damage to melee attackers, Sanctuary for a protective zone, Quickness for a movement bonus and Graft/Malmelo for healing skills. Granted Malmelo is half hp to summoned units. But at the end of the day most classes support -themselves- with the skills they have. Not everyone wants to be a light-slinger when using youkai just to be able to support them well. At this point it feels -necessary- to slot in some kind of support based class with Summoner classes just to use youkai and tactician, while it can be effective with its movement bonuses and granting them gaurd, doesn't do much beyond that for them unless you can set up the magic boosting formation and actually get targets to stay in range long enough for youkai to be moved into position to attack. Without them being killed or hit by some status effect, same for yourself.

Even Engineer bots' best support comes from engineer itself like bashfix and overcharge. In conclusion, I just wish to see more skills that interact directly with Youkai from Grand Summoner, the class that's supposedly an advanced level Summoner, and a bit more variety in choosing which attack skill to keep from Bonder seeing as how Infernal Summon is the clear winner in most cases.

I do agree with this in some parts- I feel that Bonder is wholly reliant on another class to have any viability beyond relying wholly on a Youkai (or three, to lesser effect) that's statistically worse than any player, and I believe Grand Summoner has little to defend themselves beyond continuously spamming Youkai summoning for more defenses or Judgment Blade.

Youkai on their own are lackluster (strong AoEs can basically wipe them out without any buffs), and as Grand Summoner, you rely on your weak army of Youkai to survive; as Bonder, you rely on a class synergy to survive. Without Youkai, there's little a Grand Summoner or Bonder can actually do.

I'd suggest more skills (more offensively based) overall for the entirety of Summoners, in my opinion. The Youkai can be bashed all day with nerfs or buffs, but the Summoner themselves don't have much on their own. Combinations with Grand Summoner or Bonder don't count; on its own, a class should be able to stand by itself.

I personally think Bonder on itself is a fine class concept wise, it does have some major issues though if you really want to go the path where you play alongside your youkai, which is sorta it's theme. So making the bonder a bit more combat viable for the trade of only having 3 youkai would be nice.

Bonder on it self simply lacks more differnt weapon skills, simply to have some variety in how it's played to make it fun instead it entirely relying on your secondary class to make use of your weapon. I think that could make bonder much more fun to play, even if the attacks are as basic as sidecut (I mean, sidecut is still one of the favorite skills of people cause it's simple and cool)

I think I said something more along the lines of you weren't using it right because Grand Summoner can still be very strong on its own, it has problems that need addressing, no one can deny that, but thats another thread for another time.

We had that conversation a while ago so I don't remember it completely but I don't think I said you were bad, just that you weren't using the class to its fullest potential at the current moment.